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How Self-Driving Cars Will Change The World

The steady advance of automated driving will have a number of impacts on the automotive and transportation industries in the coming years. While the technology for fully autonomous vehicles on public roads has not yet arrived, the first test programs are scheduled. In the United Kingdom, a pilot program slated for launch in 2015 will see some small autonomous vehicles moving people around the city center of Milton Keynes, although initially the roads used will be restricted to these small cars only. It will be the first implementation of self-driving vehicles in a public environment; the U.K. already has autonomous vehicles shuttling people from the business car park to Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, on a dedicated roadway.

The transportation industry relies heavily on drivers for buses, taxis, and road haulage and delivery. In the long term it seems inevitable that autonomous vehicles can take over more and more of that work. Although the technology is under development, it is still many years from being ready for widespread implementation. Only a few thousand are expected to be in service by 2020. (Details are covered in the Navigant Research report, Autonomous Vehicles.) But road haulage companies are looking at all aspects of their business to find ways to remain competitive on cost, and while approximately one-third of their cost is fuel, another third is the driver.

Passengers Only Please

The likelihood is that more pilot schemes will get underway in cities around the world in the nextnext few years. Initially the automated vehicles will be tested as a local taxi service, but will then move on to include local delivery. Linking the vehicles with the infrastructure will be the first phase of a smart city approach to managing logistics in a defined local area. As experience grows and the benefits are quantified, the areas covered will expand. At some point, it’s likely that conventional vehicles with drivers will be limited and then excluded.

The effect of this will be to change the nature of the market for vehicle manufacturers. People will come to see a vehicle as a service rather than as a possession. Once transportation is available when you need it and can be summoned by clicking on a smartphone app, owning a car will become a choice rather than a necessity. It may be that in the future manufacturers will appeal to consumers by the quality of the features offered by their local vehicle fleets, rather than targeting their marketing to influence individuals to purchase a specific vehicle.

The Next Transportation Transformation

Vehicle design will change significantly, as well. For vehicles made specifically to move slowly around city roads only, the design specifications will be very different than those for vehicles expected to travel at high speed on freeways. Electric drive with wireless top-up charging makes a lot of sense for powering driverless city vehicles, leaving liquid fuels as the source of energy for inter-city vehicles. Safety specifications will be very different as well.

A little over 100 years ago, the vehicle market made a huge shift from horse- and man-power to the internal combustion engine, ultimately delivering individual freedom to travel in a way that could not have been imagined. Self-driving vehicles have the potential to spur a similar transformation in the future. For a deeper look at the emerging market for autonomous vehicles, please sign up for our webinar, “The Era of Self-Driving Cars,” on November 19. Click here to register.

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How about the important social impacts, legislation permitting — rural pubs could see a big increase in business if a self-driving car is permitted to convey patrons home safely even if they have had several drinks. Do DUIs for Google, after all.